Research Suggests FDR’s New Deal Dropped Black Farms from 14 to 2%
If Everybody Eats Food Why Aren’t Black Farmers Thriving
If we all eat food then why aren’t farmers thriving? Why aren’t black farmers thriving? After a deep dive into the plight of black farmers, new research suggests the root cause of black farmers’ challenges in reaching the market was bad government policy.
Harmful policies and a lack of access to transportation services are challenges black farmers have in reaching retail grocery stores. This project has opened our hearts and minds to the promises and free liberties afforded one group and not another.
Digitally Connected USA allows Black Americans to go back to their entrepreneurial strengths. History is not for one to like or dislike and Black Americans have to fight to preserve our history beyond slavery. If perception is reality then the Black American reality is about returning to the entrepreneurial strength and ingenuity that built Seneca Village (now called central park) and thousands of other profitable Black American towns now forgotten. Returning to our entrepreneurial roots is the most logical solution to saving black farmers and avoiding food shortages in 2023.
Digitally Connected USA
Black Americans are inherently entrepreneurs. After emancipation, individuals went from being enslaved, and legally forbidden to read, to a 40 percent literacy rate. In fact, the first Historically Black College was founded in 1837 sixteen years before the end of slavery. Between emancipation in 1863 and 1920, Black Americans owned over 925,000 farms in the United States (14 percent of the farming population). However, white farmers were upset.
“A wave of discontent caused by mounting unemployment and farm failures had helped elect President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised Americans a “New Deal.” And in the depths of the Great Depression, the Farm Service Agency began in 1933.” USDA website
THE “GOLDEN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
From 1870 to World War I, the demand for food skyrocketed. Today we call it the “golden age” of globalization because European farms were being destroyed, and men were drafted into war, there were fewer people to tend to European farms. Then the war ended and without warning American farmers went from selling agriculture around the world to losing their farmland and family homes in a few short years.
After the war, the government couldn’t guarantee prices, and farmers who borrowed money during the war were not able to pay their debts. Farms became less valuable — anyone who had money in the bank lost their savings and the Great Depression began in the 1920s.
THE AAA
Research suggests the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) established a program that limited production and created federal subsidies to ease the desperation of non-black farmers. Instead of using the New Deal to promote civil rights, Roosevelt’s administration supported discrimination. Although his wife, Eleanor, took a public stand in support of civil rights, most of Roosevelt’s programs from the New Deal discriminated against blacks.
“Being the root cause in the case of Black American farmers, the Commission on Civil Rights found the USDA guilty of persisted discrimination in Agricultural programs in the years — 1968, 1970, 1981, 1982, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2008.”
Economists Thomas E. Hall and J. David Ferguson explained the New Deal affected all farmers in the south but black farmers were among millions of consumers paying high food prices without assistance from the government. High food prices combined with less production equaled less work. For one reason or another, 60 percent of Black farmers lost their land and wealth. In one year more than 100,000 Black Americans were forced off their land because of the federal government’s AAA policies.
Research suggests the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) acreage reduction hit Black Americans hard because white landlords made more money by not tilling the land than putting land into production. That affected the remaining 40% of black workers who made their living as tenant farmers or sharecroppers.
WHY WAS THE NEW DEAL CONTROVERSIAL
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was one of the more controversial New Deal programs because it only “eased the desperate burden of non-black farmers.” For example, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided work for a variety of professionals including nurses, librarians, artists, and craftsmen but it offered whites the first crack at jobs. WPA also authorized separated and lowered pay scales for blacks. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refused to guarantee mortgages for blacks who wanted to buy in white neighborhoods and the Social Security Act excluded job categories traditionally filled by blacks.
SOLUTIONS CREATE LEGACY
The only logical solution to this challenge is logistics. Like the Phoenix rising out of the ash, Black Americans have gone back to their entrepreneurial strengths and are entering 2023 with retail-ready fresh fruits and vegetables available by the pallet. Apples, cabbage, carrots, and herbs. Hand-picked garlic, basil, and peas. Order a fruit or veggie pallet based on your menu or an assortment of fruits, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, and more by category. When you order Freedmen Farms, you get an untapped resource of REAL (not genetically modified) organic, fruits and vegetables grown by black farmers right here in the United States.
Preserving the history of iconic Black Americans, black farmers have gone back to their entrepreneurial strength. The same entrepreneurial strength and ingenuity that built Seneca Village (now called central park) and thousands of other profitable towns. It’s not magic that we’re here today, it’s destiny.
Perfect for restaurant groups, franchised, or independently owned grocers. Now serving the Manhattan borough of New York City.
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